Why do we hate our candidates so much?

When it comes time for the general elections, we’ll all be moping about and complaining that we only have a choice between the lesser of two evils. Why?

It could be that we focus a large portion of our efforts during the primaries bashing every candidate but the one for which we intend to vote.

Gingrich is too much of a politician, Perry is too stupid, Ron Paul is too crazy, Michele Bachmann is too .. Bachmann-y .. well, you get the point. We don’t seem to be for anyone but instead be against everyone except who we deem to be the least undesirable candidate.

Maybe we need some type of relationship counselling. Between twitter, facebook, everyday conversation and reading political opinion outlets of all sizes and shapes, it’s obvious – we don’t know how to love our candidate.

Our candidates are trying. They’d buy us that dinner, take us to a show – whatever it took to secure our vote. In our vetting process though, we’ve decided that only the negative aspects of their pasts, their debate gaffes and other faults matter. Oddly enough – they’re all human.

Even when someone has chosen a candidate, they tell us why their candidate’s negatives aren’t that bad. That’s not exciting – it’s downright depressing actually.

Perhaps it’s because we haven’t yet really picked our favorite horse in the race. I’m in that court. In the general, I would vote for any of the remaining candidates against our current President and there are still three candidates that I would be happy to vote for in the primaries.

I am intentionally trying to focus on the positive aspects of the candidates as we close in on the January primaries. Can’t we ask “What reasons does this candidate give me to vote for him or her” instead of stating the reasons we hate the others?

Honestly, when was the last time you went to the refrigerator and picked out something to eat by first finding something you didn’t like about every other item in the fridge?

I have not been sniffing the blessed fart of the Utopian unicorn, but I plan to vote for someone because of what I like about them – not because I hated (almost) everything else about the others.